Portraits of PRIDE: 6 LGBTQ Game Changers You Should Know

Portraits of Pride celebrates an illustrious group of people who make the South’s progressive and prolific LGBTQ community so powerful. Each year we take time to revel in the great strides and successes the LGBTQ community has effectuated while reflecting on the important work that is still necessary to preserve and further the cause of social justice for ourselves, our families, our friends, and our neighbors.

Percy Brown

Percy Brown is an Atlanta-based LGBTQ leader, advocate, and award-winning communications professional. He is Communications Manager at Georgia Equality, a political advocacy organization to advance fairness, safety, and opportunity for Georgia’s LGBTQ community. Prior to joining Georgia Equality, Percy led internal communications for Cox Automotive’s corporate social responsibility, community relations, and diversity and inclusion programs. He was also one the founding members of the company’s PRIDE Employee Resource Group.

As a black gay man, he has worked tirelessly to ensure LGBTQ people of color and their unique experiences are included in the conversation. This includes writing for local publications, speaking on panels, and presenting at Fortune 500 companies on LGBTQ equality and the nuances of intersectionality.

As a community leader, Percy has a long history of being an agent of change in Atlanta’s LGBTQ community. He currently sits on the Executive Committee of the Human Rights Campaign’s National Board of Governors and is the co-chair of HRC’s National Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Percy was named the first Black man to co-chair the HRC Atlanta Gala & Auction, the largest LGBTQ fundraiser in the Southeast. He also sits on the Executive Committee of the LGBTQ Caucus of the Democratic Party of Georgia.

Jamie Green-Fergerson

As a child, Jamie Green-Fergerson didn’t realize it was possible to be gay and also be happy. “I received a lot of messaging growing up saying you can’t be queer, you can’t be a lesbian, you can’t be gay and be a good person,” she says. In 2001, while a student at Georgia State, she attended her first Atlanta Pride Festival. Suddenly, the narrative as she’d known it changed: She saw people who were happy and successful. They had good jobs and families; they were members of their faith communities. She says she thought to herself, “Here’s a space for me, a place I can be in and be safe.” Green-Fergerson began volunteering with Atlanta Pride soon after, eventually joining its board of directors. The executive director of Atlanta Pride, Jamie Green-Ferguson has been committed to the inclusiveness of Atlanta for years. Green-Ferguson joined the organization first as a volunteer, then eventually joining its board of directors. Now overseeing its events throughout the year, including Atlanta Pride, the largest Pride festival in the Southeast. She is also the mother of an amazing second grader.

Edwin Dill

Edwin, commonly known as Eddie, brings more than 18 years in non-profit development and corporate marketing with a focus on LGBT social services and the financial services industries. Serving as Director of Development with Crossroads Ministries and prior, Georgia Equality, as well as consultant with The LGBT Institute, he manages fundraising through individual donors and corporate relations. During his tenure at the LGBT Community Center in New York he developed multi year corporate partnerships and social sustainability programs. Through his consulting services he worked in program and marketing development with SAGE, Live Out Loud, GLSEN, Out Professionals, The Trevor Project and The Point Foundation. Prior to non-profit he worked with Citigroup’s retail bank network in national sales and marketing where he also served on the company’s LGBT employee resource group.

Mickey Bee

Micky Bee is a Black Trans Woman using cultural organizing to build Transgender political leadership across the South. A German born Army brat, Micky descends from the 1st free Black welders in SouthWest Georgia. Her political development was grown through a village of anti-racist white feminists, Black trans women, & HIV-positive Black gay men. Since 2015, Micky B co-founded & continues to curate “Southern Fried Queer Pride” (SFQP), a deep fried serving of queer performance, art education, & do-it-yourself grit. Micky loves fried vegetarian cuisine after a long day of voguing in resistance to the police state.

Currently, Micky Bee is the “Regional Organizer” for TLC@SONG; a new type of collaboration combining the feminist legal expertise of the “Transgender Law Center” (TLC) & the grassroots campaign organizing of “Southerners on New Ground” (SONG). TLC@SONG is building Transgender movement across the South from rural towns to big cities, through potlucks and legal clinics, from deep isolation to collective liberation.

Lynn Barfield

Lynn Barfield is commonly known as “Mama Lynn” attended the University of Georgia and has over 25 years of volunteering and being active in Atlanta’s non-profit sector. Barfield volunteers with CHRIS Kids and AIDS Walk Atlanta, and has worked with YouthPride, Atlanta Union Mission, Hands on Atlanta and other charitable organizations. Previously, Barfield served as the executive director of Enlight Atlanta, an organization dedicated to working with educators, parents and students to combat bullying in schools. In addition, Barfield served her last year as President of For the Kid in All Of Us, a nonprofit that partners with other nonprofits and agencies who service underprivileged children in our city and state, in 2018. In 2011, she was chosen as a grand marshal for the Atlanta Pride festival and was named one of Fenuxe magazine’s top 50 most influential and prominent members of Atlanta’s LGBT community in 2012.

Alfons Dovana

Alfons is from Durres, Albania, and has called Atlanta home since 2010. He’s a recent graduate of KSU with a Bachelor of Apparel and Textile, and he currently works at his home studio designing, sewing, and styling. He also produces Queen Butch Events, which is a queer dance party that embraces diversity and individuality in the gay community through underground house and disco music. Alfons also enjoys giving back to the community, and he does so by volunteering with Joining Hearts, More To Love, and Open Hand.